Thursday, September 20, 2012

One Night With Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey is the (pouty) face of H&M's fall collection and Wednesday night in NYC, she was the voice as well during their party. Everyone knows I love me some Lana so when I snagged an invite for her private performance at the Wooly, I was so there. First, I covered the black carpet for Fuse, where I chatted with model Robyn Lawley (the new face of Ralph Lauren) and star stylist Robert Verdi. Lana did walk the carpet (wearing H&M obvi) but she didn't do interviews. I usually hate when celebs skip interviews but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt...maybe she was saving her voice for her performance later in the night?

I wasn't sure what to expect since this was my first time seeing Lana perform and she famously bombed her live set on Saturday Night Live earlier this year. The Wooly is a super small, intimate venue so my former E! and Life & Style coworker and BFF Laura and I were able to score prime stageside real estate. I'm happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised by Lana's pipes in person.

She sang 4 songs, opening with Blue Jeans (video below) before crooning a song from her upcoming album called Sing the Body Electric.

Then LDR sang her hit Video Games much better than she did on SNL (listen for yourself below) before capping off her set with a cover of Blue Velvet, the song featured in her H&M campaign.

For someone who has such a bombshell image, (hello, have you seen her naked British GQ cover?) Lana seemed almost shy and sweet on stage. "There's so many faces here I recognize," she told the crowd in between songs. Now I've seen a lot of shows where the artists don't really sing or rely on backing tracks. Instead, she had a full band complete with vionlists. The strings sounded so pretty during the acoustic performance. I think her sound and lyrics are so unique and that definitely translated live as well. The audience seemed really into her performance, as was I. Her voice sounded amazing and being able to see her in such a small venue was really cool. My only complaint is she didn't give us an encore! After her soulful set, guests stayed to sip custom cocktails like the Wooly Mule (their delicious twist on a traditional Moscow Mule) and dance to the deejay's tunes.

My friends and I loved the cotton candy and fun desserts they served at the end.

The good news is that it was an epic night and she was even better than I hoped live! The bad news is my girl crush on her is bigger than ever. Love you Lana! x

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